Nigeria to tap grain reserves – Buhari

Nigeria will tap its strategic grain reserves to rein in food prices, President Muhammadu Buhari said, as Africa’s biggest economy faces its worst economic crisis in decades fueled by a collapse in crude oil prices.

Annual inflation in the continent’s top oil exporter rose to a near four-year high of 12.8 percent in March from 11.4 percent in February, driven by a rise in food prices.

“President Buhari has ordered the release of 10,000 tons of grain from the National Strategic Grains Reserve to check food price increases,” his office said in a tweet on Sunday.

He ordered the agriculture ministry to assist “all able-bodied men and women” living in camps for people displaced by the jihadist Boko Haram group to return “immediately” to farming, it said. Read more